10 Funniest Excuses People Gave for Calling Out of Work 

Admit it: You’ve called in sick to work when you really wanted to just spend the day on the couch, binge-watching Daredevil or House of Cards. Well, you’re not alone in stretching the truth about your health. Thirty-eight percent of employees surveyed by CareerBuilder said they had called in sick to work in the last year even though they weren’t really under the weather, 10 percentage points higher over last year.
 

Having a doctor’s appointment was a big reason why people called in sick when they weren’t feeling well, the survey of 3,321 full-time workers found. But the same number – 27% — said they had faked an illness because they just didn’t feel like showing up. Twenty-six percent felt they needed to relax, 21% were behind on sleep and wanted to catch some Z’s, and 12% took a look at the weather and decided dragging themselves to the office in the middle of a blizzard or thunderstorm wasn’t worth it.
 

Some people do more than just faking a cough when taking an unexpected day off. The survey also asked more than 2,300 employers about some of the weirdest excuses employees had given for not showing up to work. Here are 10 of the strangest.
 

1. Employee claimed his grandmother poisoned him with ham.
2. Employee was stuck under the bed.
3. Employee broke his arm reaching to grab a falling sandwich.
4. Employee said the universe was telling him to take a day off.
5. Employee’s wife found out he was cheating. He had to spend the day retrieving his belongings from the dumpster.
6. Employee poked herself in the eye while combing her hair.
7. Employee said his wife put all his underwear in the washer.
8. Employee said the meal he cooked for a department potluck didn’t turn out well.
9. Employee was going to the beach because the doctor said she needed more vitamin D.
10. Employee said her cat was stuck inside the dashboard of her car. 

Your boss may not be sympathetic to your claim that the universe told you to skip work, but a goofy excuse may not be nearly as harmful to your career as outright lying about being sick. Thirty-three percent of employers have checked to see if an absent employee is really sick, CareerBuilder found, and nearly a quarter have fired someone who called in sick with a fake excuse.
 

Asking to see a doctor’s note was the most common way that bosses verified that a case of the sniffles was genuine, but nearly a third checked up on an employee’s social media to see what he really got up to on his day off. Careless Facebooking was the undoing of many slacker employees. More than 30% of employers had caught an employee who was lying about being sick by checking their social media, and 26% then fired the employee.
 

Despite the creative reasons that some people come up with for missing work, not taking time off when genuinely sick is likely a bigger problem than people who ditch work to go to the beach. Fifty-four percent of survey respondents said they’d gone to work when sick because they had too much work to do and 48% said they’d risked infecting their coworkers or customers with a cold or the flu because they couldn’t afford to take a sick day. Even doctors, who should know better, go to work while ill, a recent survey found.
 

The United States is currently the only developed ｃountry in the world that doesn’t guarantee workers at least some paid sick leave, according to The Washington Post. While people who don’t get paid sick days are understandably hesitant to call in when they’re under the weather, “presenteesism” is a problem even among people who do get PTO. Showing up to work while sick costs the U.S. economy $160 billion every year, by some estimates.
 

So go ahead and call in sick if you really don’t feel well. Just don’t lie and say your grandma fed you poisoned ham. 

Article Source: http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/10-funniest-excuses-people-gave-for-calling-out-of-work.html/
Image Source: http://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Sickness-absence.jpg?855a64 

VOCABULARY WORDS:
1. Stretch the truth (idiom) ~ to say something that is not completely honest in order to make someone or something seem better than it really is
2. Blizzard (n.) ~ a severe snowstorm with high winds and low visibility
3. Retrieve (v.) ~ get or bring (something) back regain possession of
4. Goofy (adj./ informal) ~ foolish harmlessly eccentric
5. Undoing (n.) ~ a person's ruin or downfall
6. Ditch (v./ informal) ~ get rid of give up 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
1. How often do you call in sick for work? What is the usual reason when you do so?
2. Would you rather your co-worker call in sick when he/she is under the weather or would you prefer that he/she comes to work even if it means a risk of infecting you and your co-workers of his/her disease?  Discuss your answer.
3. What are the usual reasons of absences in your company?
4. Aside from sickness, what do you think are the other acceptable reasons for absence?